Powell River: Student Action

(Originally published in the Powell River Peak)

Some people look at the trash from a construction project and shrug. Others sigh about the waste.

Ryan Barfoot, sustainability and eco-education coordinator for School District 47, looked at the scrap wood being generated by the reconstruction project at Brooks Secondary School and saw an opportunity.

Edgehill Elementary School staff approached him for help with their Dream Streams project, an environmental display of large wooden salmon to decorate the school. They needed help and materials, and thought that Students for Environmental Awareness (SEA), a student group he runs at Brooks, might want to become involved.

"Instead of seeking new material, we're using the scrap wood," he said. "They get their artwork, and there's less waste going into the landfill. It's a full-circle and holistic approach, and everybody benefits."

More than that, the group is moving beyond Edgehill's original plan, said grade 10 student Katherine Boucher. "We're going to do a dramatic presentation about salmon streams, the importance of salmon and habitat."

Barfoot said that this is only one little project, but it's involving hundreds of students overall. "For Edgehill, it started as an art project," he said. "We're helping them do it in a full way, with a deeper dimension of education and mentorship, with my students mentoring their young students."

Added grade 12 student Erika Davies, "we're learning by teaching, which is cool."

(More...)

Barfoot said the teens of SEA are young, but they are both enthusiastic and knowledgeable when talking about cutting-edge subjects such as sustainability and smart development.

Erika said the group is working on an ecological footprint presentation. "We're going to present this around the school," she said. "It's important for students to know how much of the world's resources they're using, and how they can reduce that."

That's a general goal, but they also work on concrete projects, such as getting the school to use more recycled paper. "The problem there is that recycled paper costs more," said grade 12 student Kayle Wilson. "We're looking at doing a fundraiser to help cover the difference."

And grade 10 student Mackenzie Adamson is looking to the end of the year for a paper-related, tie-in project. "There's tons of paper thrown out when school is over," he said. "Maybe we'll have a huge recycling bin and do it as a fundraiser."

The SEA students worked with Canada World Youth to clean up the beach at Tla'Amin (Sliammon) First Nation, and circulated petitions opposing the liquefied natural gas plant on Texada Island.

While the group only has 21 members so far, Katherine said she thinks they're making an impact. "We're spreading the word," she said. "We talk to our friends, and they inform their friends, and it gets out there."

The school district is looking to be carbon-neutral by 2010. This means balancing carbon emissions and power usage with sustainable alternative energy. The group is looking at ways of helping that along, including replacing all light bulbs in the school with more efficient models.

Katherine said she'd like to start a greenhouse in the back of the school. "We could do more composting, too," she said.

Beyond that, Erika said she believes youth need to have more of a say in what goes on in the world. "We should have more of a voice in the community sustainability charter," she said. "People make plans, but they only ask what the current generation thinks."

"We're the ones who are going to have to live with the consequences," Kayle added.

"We want action," Katherine said. "They use a lot of words like hope and desire, but there's not much on action and taking charge."

The group meets a couple of times a month, generally at lunchtime on Thursdays, and more frequently when they're working on a big project. Sometimes, Barfoot said, they just take a break and get out into the outdoors.

"I think that's what fuels people," he said. "Without having direct experience of the environment, it's hard to embrace."

Why it's important to be an organ donor

(Originally published in the Powell River Peak)

Joey Whitford has a new pair of lungs and a new lease on life.

The Powell River native, whose lungs were scarred by cystic fibrosis (CF), is in his sixth month of post-operative rehabilitation in Toronto after a cutting-edge operation.

With his lungs damaged by the disease, most physical activities were an impossible strain, said Joey's mother, Renee Whitford. "Now he's been skating for the first time in 10 years, he's shooting hoops and soon he'll be resuming golf, which is one of his passions," she said.

(There's more...)

Joey said he is looking forward to returning to Powell River next month. He would have preferred to have his surgery in Vancouver, but he had a complication that could only be handled in Toronto.

"There is a shortage of donor organs in BC," he said. "Toronto has the donor base to allow Toronto General Hospital to become one of the top transplant hospitals in the world. The doctors in Vancouver had done five transplants; my doctors in Toronto had done more than 100. I'd like to see that change in BC, but we need more organ donors."

Renee said that when Joey was diagnosed, double lung transplants weren't an option. "There was nothing," she said. "Nothing but slowly fade and die. The doctors said he only had a 50 per cent chance of living until he was five. There weren't adults with CF in those days - kids got it, and kids died."

Renee added, "I think if people could understand the fear a parent goes through, wondering if there will be a donor in time to save my child, I think more people would donate."

Joey left for Toronto on December 18, 2006, and finally went in for surgery on August 19, 2007. Recovery was complicated by bowel obstruction, kidney shutdown and dialysis.

Most people don't realize that the law pertaining to donations has changed, Joey said. "People think that if they signed up to be organ donors with their driver's licence, they're still donors," he said. "But that's no longer valid. You have to start over and fill out a form, which you can get at doctors' offices and clinics, or sign up online at Transplant BC's website, or at my own website, CFsucks." On the website, he added, that's short for "CF sucks the breath out of you."

Once a person becomes an organ donor, said Joey, they can save many lives and have a positive impact on even more. "Between heart, lungs, liver, valves, corneas and so many other things, each donor can affect 36 lives. If you have an untimely death, it's a way that good can come out of tragedy."

One of the things that kept him going through the hard times was his love of golf. He has started the process to become a golf pro, but he didn't have the stamina for the physical side of the test. Soon, he said, that will be possible.

Disease strikes early
Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is the most common fatal genetic disease affecting young Canadians. A person afflicted with CF produces excess mucus that affects mainly the lungs and the digestive system.

In the digestive tract, CF makes it difficult to digest and absorb nutrients from food. In the lungs, CF causes severe breathing problems.

A build-up of thick mucus makes it difficult to clear bacteria and leads to infection and damage to lung tissues. People with CF must follow a daily routine of physical therapy to keep the lungs free of congestion, and routine intravenous antibiotics to fight infection. Most persons with CF eventually die of lung disease.

For more information, readers can visit the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation's website.

The Challenge of Wellness

(Originally published in the Powell River Peak)

One of the challenges of the human condition is that we all seek our personal paradise - a good job, a good relationship and a good home in a good community. And then we want to stay there.

But time has its way, and we don't get to stop when we get where we want to be. Like Alice's Red Queen, we have to run as fast as we can just to stay in one place.

(There's more...)

How do we stay well? As presented at last weekend's Live Well: A Night Celebrating Wellness event at Brooks Secondary School, wellness is a lot more than not being sick. Author Brian Luke Seaward spoke about being a whole person - whole in mind, whole in body and whole in spirit.

That takes good food. Folks who would never think of pumping trash gas into the tank of their vehicle often forget that their body needs prime fuel as well.

Malaspina University-College professor Les Malbon talked about the 50-mile diet, and how much better it is to eat whole foods that are fresh and local. It's not good when food is trucked in from a factory farm 1,000 kilometres away, or from Chile or China. It may be cheaper, but the food is less nutritious, less flavourful, and may be tainted with toxins. And it devalues local farms.

Malbon pointed out that since 2001, more than 30 per cent of the agricultural land around Nanaimo has been lost to development. As Powell River looks to sustainably manage growth at the Saturday, January 19 community sustainability charter meeting, it's worth considering that the original meaning of the word paradise was orchard. Do we want more orchards, or more parking lots?

When wellness program organizer Jim Palm called Dr. Jeanne Paul to invite her to speak at Brooks, she told him she had been to Brooks before--for one day. It was 1951, when there was a deep well of prejudice against first nations peoples, and Paul was taken from Tla'Amin (Sliammon) First Nation and sent to boarding school.

Now, half a century later, Paul was a featured speaker, and other first nations participants were integral to the program. It was a testament to the way the non-aboriginal communities and first nations communities are building together to achieve a true regional wellness.

For the community, wellness is about integrating all the individuals into a coherent whole. That doesn't mean groupthink or hive mind, but healthy interactions, free of prejudice, coercion and fear.

Seaward emphasized how humour and humility are central to that, and author-educator Chris Bratseth put the spotlight on kindness. Small acts of daily kindness are the food that grows healthy communities.

Eagle Walz, who was also honoured on the weekend, has done an immeasurable amount of work on the Sunshine Coast Trail. He didn't do it for money, or even for the thanks of strangers who hike those trails, never knowing the man who helped make the trails possible. He did it because he lives here. He gets to enjoy them and so does everyone else.

Wellness multiplies wellness.

90 mpg from a Hummer? Dang...

We could cut our fuel use by more than 50 percent just by revamping our cars. This guy is a miracle worker...

Check it out. It's actually a jet engine," says Johnathan Goodwin, with a low whistle. "This thing is gonna be even cooler than I thought." We're hunched on the floor of Goodwin's gleaming workshop in Wichita, Kansas, surrounded by the shards of a wooden packing crate. Inside the wreckage sits his latest toy--a 1985-issue turbine engine originally designed for the military. It can spin at a blistering 60,000 rpm and burn almost any fuel. And Goodwin has some startling plans for this esoteric piece of hardware: He's going to use it to create the most fuel-efficient Hummer in history.

Read the whole article... or watch an interview:

Fighting a Cold? Take D!

(Originally published in the Powell River Peak)

How do you get your vitamins?

Vitamin C comes from oranges, vitamin A from carrots, but the main source of vitamin D is the sun. Vitamin D is the only major nutrient humans can produce themselves.

The good news most people make all they need in 15 to 20 minutes of overhead summer sunlight (longer for those with dark skin).

But that's in summer. According to Dania Matiation, the community nutritionist at Vancouver Community Health, "the bad news is that this far north, in winter, you're probably not getting enough sunlight even if you spend an hour or more outdoors. Which means you need to be looking at your diet, or at supplements."

In northern latitudes, the low level of the sun in the sky means that the ultraviolet B rays that form vitamin D are blocked by the thickness of the atmosphere, even at midday. That's why Scandinavians have used cod liver oil for years, and why the Inuit eat a diet heavy with D-rich animal fats. It's also why Health Canada estimates that the majority of Canadians have a vitamin D deficiency.

It's been known since the 1930s that lack of vitamin D caused a condition called rickets, but it's only in the past few years that a raft of new research has built a strong case that vitamin D, which is technically a steroid hormone precursor, rather than a true vitamin, is critical to everything from immune system function, including fighting cancer, to nervous system development in infants. One study even showed that people with higher levels of the vitamin lived two to three years longer than those with low levels.

Studies are also improving knowledge of how much is needed. The current Health Canada standard of 400 IU (international units) was based on the amount needed to prevent rickets. The new studies indicate that much more may be needed for optimum health, as much as 1,000 to 2,000 IU.

"I think there will be new recommendations from Health Canada in the next few months," said Matiation.

Getting that much isn't practical through diet. Milk is fortified, but only 100 IU per cup. That leaves two options--supplements and tanning booths.

"The booths provide both kinds of ultraviolet, A and B," said Rhonda Boyles, owner of Pacific Breeze Tanning Studios. "It's possible to have a sensible regime of tanning that meets your vitamin needs and doesn't damage your skin." Boyles also works as a receptionist at the Powell River Recreation Complex, another location for tanning. "When you start acquiring the tan," she added, "that's the signal that you're getting enough vitamin D."

One contributing factor to the deficiency problem is that dermatologists, justifiably worried about increasing skin cancer rates, have been discouraging any sun exposure at all, and encouraging use of sunscreen when people do go out. But sunscreen blocks ultraviolet B.

Dr. James Spencer, clinical professor of dermatology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York City, says people can get enough vitamin D from diet and supplements. He recommends fortified milk or orange juice, and eating salmon and other fatty fish, plus taking a 600 IU supplement. "It's so easy," he said. "And it's a lot safer than lying in the sun or climbing undressed into a tanning booth and frying your whole body."

Heather Chappell, senior manager of cancer control policy at the Canadian Cancer Society, agreed that the most reliable source is probably supplements. "The Society recommends that adults start talking 1,000 IU of vitamin D daily in winter, and people with dark skin should take them year round."

Matiation added that, while it's important to consume D, it should be done sensibly. "Don't panic and overdo it," she said, "because too much vitamin D also has toxicity problems." This is especially true for pregnant women, who should consult a physician before adding supplements of any kind.

"A reasonable balance of sun, diet and supplements should work for most people," she said.

Vitamin D Effects
* Promotes immune system function. Why do people get colds and influenza in winter? New studies show it may be low levels of vitamin D.
* Promotes immune system cancer fighting, particularly against colon, breast and prostate cancers.
* Regulates bone density and calcium absorption.
* Low levels may be linked to diseases ranging from high blood pressure to periodontal disease, multiple sclerosis and depression.
* Low levels are strongly linked to muscle aches and bone pain.
* Taking supplements may add as many as one to two years to the average lifespan

Vitamin D Sources
* Fish liver oils, such as cod liver oil, 15 millilitres provides 1,360 IU.
* Catfish, 85 milligrams provides 425 IU.
* Salmon, wild-caught, cooked, 100 milligrams provides 360 IU.
* Mackerel, cooked, 100 milligrams provides 345 IU.
* Sardines, canned in oil, drained, 50 milligrams provides 250 IU.
* Tuna, canned in oil, 85 milligrams provides 200 IU.
* Sun-dried shiitake mushrooms, 13 caps provide 400 IU.
* Fortified cow's milk, 250 millilitres provides 100 IU.

Bending the Shire

This is very cool... If you have a spare $700,000, and don't mind living in Bend, Oregon, there's a community-based, green-construction development going up with houses based on Tolkien's Shire.

Okay, very loosely based. As any self-respecting Hobbit knows, proper houses are built by digging into the sides of hills, are constructed in tunnels rather than with walls and roofs, and have round doors, not standard-issue rectangular ones.

But if you can get past that, the houses do look fantastical.

Writers Strike: Why We Fight

Various folks have been putting out videos, explaining why there's a writers strike.

If like most people you aren't too familiar with the issues, this is a good place to start:

Medical Tourism

(Originally published in the Powell River Peak)

Once upon a time, rock stars and celebrities went to India seeking enlightenment. It was the hip thing to do.

Jacquie Brock went for a different kind of hip.

The Cranberry Lake resident is a poster child for what it means to be active and healthy in one's senior years. Except for her hip. She started having mobility problems several years ago. The situation wasn't life-threatening, but the pain of even simple movement and walking was making life miserable for her.

Unfortunately, getting medical procedures that don't involve life and death, like hip replacement, can be a painfully slow process.

(There's more...)

"It was going downhill fast," said Brock. "In July I was in the doctor's office and he phoned a clinic on Vancouver Island. They said, 'she's on the list to get on the list to see a specialist, and we'll phone her in September or October.' Not for an appointment, just for an update on the list."

This is how she found herself in Chanai, India. Medical travel has become big business--a multi-billion dollar business by some estimates, with patients from the United States (US), Canada and Europe taking advantage of lower costs in India, Singapore and Thailand to get cut-rate dental care and surgery.

Healthbase, a US company, arranged all the details of Brock's procedure, from anaesthetic to X-rays. The company even arranged all necessary visas.

Brock left Powell River on November 10 and was back on the 29th. This was a very quick turnaround. The trip to India left Brock with expenses of about $8,000 in medical fees, and substantially more in travel costs, in addition to the 32 hours of flying each way.

It's the cost side of the equation that makes medical travel prohibitive for the average person. To date, only a handful of Canadians have taken advantage of this opportunity. The BC ministry of health doesn't track statistics, but Healthbase said they have dozens of Canadian clients, not thousands.

Rather than research a specific country or company, Brock started out researching a technique. Sitting lakeside in the Cranberry home she shares with husband Bob, Brock described the procedure, known as Birmingham resurfacing.

"Instead of cutting the top off your femur and driving a titanium ball down the center of the leg bone," she said, "they resurface the socket with titanium and then top the ball at the top of your femur with titanium. It's much less traumatic, you can imagine."

"Look," she said, standing up and then raising her leg, first out to the left, then straight forward in front of her. "It's so smooth. I haven't been able to do that in years and it doesn't hurt. It's amazing."

Brock said physiotherapy should allow her to stop using canes by the end of the year. Her mobility has improved immeasurably and so has her mood.

Of course, there are caveats.

BC Health Minister George Abbott advised caution before procuring out-of-country services. "It is very much buyer beware," he said. "Patients who do receive surgery or medical treatment in another country must accept they do so at their own risk, and realize that complications may arise, for which the provider of the service will not accept responsibility."

But working with an international company like Healthbase is hardly the same as getting a back-alley facelift, said Brock. The doctor in the Indian hospital (part of the international Apollo Group), Vijay Bose, had trained with the Birmingham team that developed the technique, and has performed more than 1,000 surgeries.

Brock's physician, Dr. Nicholas White, said there's no real reason to oppose the move if the surgical team is good. "This isn't really a totally new phenomenon," he said. "We've had people going to Mexico for decades to get dental work or cosmetic surgery."

The ministry also noted improvements over the past five years: wait time for knee replacements is down from 25 weeks to 19.9 weeks, hip replacement, down from 18.7 weeks to 13.3 weeks, and cardiac surgery, down from 15.1 to 11.3 weeks.

"That's great," said Brock. "But I couldn't even get in to see the specialist to get evaluated to go on the wait list."

Sometimes the overseas trips are called medical tourism, because people combine their medical experience with travel. But with Brock's limited mobility, that wasn't an option. She did enjoy what she saw of India, however.

"The hospital was a bit dated, like a 1940s hotel," she said. "The doctors and the nurses and staff were just marvelous, caring and loving."

Brock found the experience humbling.

"I've been taking care of myself for years," she said. "But when I was in high school, I abused my body with student sports, and then there were all the years I was helping my husband deliver deep freezes and hide-a-beds that were beyond my strength. But I said I could do it.

"My generation, that was the thinking. You were independent and you never asked for help, you just bloody well did it."

Some of that streak comes out when she talks about her trip to India. She saw what she had to do and she did it. BC is not one of the provinces, such as Ontario, that are looking at plans to help pay for out-of-province surgeries that can't be done locally. Not only did Brock pay for it all, but now she has to pay for her physiotherapy out-of-pocket as well.

"Fortunately my pocket can do it," she said. "I know not everybody's can."

Hummus Sushi?

Yummy....

Supporting the Troops

Via Brandon Freedman and the Huffington Post, CBS News reports on a "Hidden Epidemic" of military suicides.

Tonight CBS will air the first of a two-part series on the "hidden epidemic" of military suicides, revealing numbers that CBS calls "stunning." The report examines data on the suicide rate amongst veterans once they return home, which indicates a serious mental health issue — and a hidden mortality rate.

Keteyian previewed the segment on the "CBS Early Show" today, saying that the CBS five-month study found that vets were "more than twice as likely to commit suicide in 2005 as non-vets." Chillingly, though the Veterans Affairs Department estimates that "some 5,000 ex-servicemen and women will commit suicide this year,' that's a lowball estimate. Said Keteyian: "Our numbers are much higher than that, overall."

There's been an big increase in post-Iraq soldiers being drummed out for "discipline problems" - the kind of thing that is often a sign of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Wounded Times reports 10 soldiers a day are discharged with "personality disorders". And when they're cashiered, of course, they lose their VA health care, too.

I'd love to know what kind of correlation, if any, there is between soldiers being denied PTSD treatment and that incredible suicide rate...
(There's more...)

More, from NPR, and the Nation:

Jon Town has spent the last few years fighting two battles, one against his body, the other against the US Army. Both began in October 2004 in Ramadi, Iraq. He was standing in the doorway of his battalion's headquarters when a 107-millimeter rocket struck two feet above his head. The impact punched a piano-sized hole in the concrete facade, sparked a huge fireball and tossed the 25-year-old Army specialist to the floor, where he lay blacked out among the rubble.

~~~ snip ~~~

Eventually the rocket shrapnel was removed from Town's neck and his ears stopped leaking blood. But his hearing never really recovered, and in many ways, neither has his life. A soldier honored twelve times during his seven years in uniform, Town has spent the last three struggling with deafness, memory failure and depression. By September 2006 he and the Army agreed he was no longer combat-ready.

But instead of sending Town to a medical board and discharging him because of his injuries, doctors at Fort Carson, Colorado, did something strange: They claimed Town's wounds were actually caused by a "personality disorder." Town was then booted from the Army and told that under a personality disorder discharge, he would never receive disability or medical benefits.
Town is not alone. A six-month investigation has uncovered multiple cases in which soldiers wounded in Iraq are suspiciously diagnosed as having a personality disorder, then prevented from collecting benefits.

Why we were right about the war

This was nominated for Best Blog Post Ever, and you can see why. Informative and humorous all in one handy, tasty package!

The D-Squared Digest One Minute MBA - Avoiding Projects Pursued By Morons 101

Literally people have been asking me: "How is it that you were so amazingly prescient about Iraq? Why is it that you were right about everything at precisely the same moment when we were wrong?"... the secret to every analysis I've ever done of contemporary politics has been, more or less, my expensive business school education....

Good ideas do not need lots of lies told about them in order to gain public acceptance. I was first made aware of this during an accounting class. We were discussing the subject of accounting for stock options at technology companies... Since the tech companies' point of view appeared to be that if they were ever forced to account honestly for their option grants, they would quickly stop making them, this offered decent prima facie evidence that they weren't, really, all that fantastic.

Fibbers' forecasts are worthless. Case after miserable case after bloody case we went through, I tell you, all of which had this moral. Not only that people who want a project will tend to make inaccurate projections about the possible outcomes of that project, but about the futility of attempts to "shade" downward a fundamentally dishonest set of predictions.

The Vital Importance of Audit... it's been shown time and again and again; companies which do not audit completed projects in order to see how accurate the original projections were, tend to get exactly the forecasts and projects that they deserve.

Bush was going to be the MBA President, remember? Read the whole thing....

Arctic Sea Ice Collapse

If you haven't seen this yet, you probably don't understand.

Global Warming isn't something we can casually mess around with. Climate systems are incredibly complex, and can suffer massive shifts with a suddenness that takes your breath away.

Watch the video. Watch what happens to the sea ice. Keep in mind that this amount of melting has never happened within living memory, nor within thousands of years.

And we really have no idea how it will affect other things - like the Gulf Stream current that keeps Europe mild and habitable, or the wider ocean currents that provide food for our fish stocks, or the weather patterns that give us rainfall that waters our crops and provides us with drinking water.

We have no idea how bad it can get, or how fast.

End the War

Folks are marching today.

"Bring 'em home, bring 'em home..."

The Cutting Edge is Green

(Published in Luxury Life & Style)

Living on the cutting edge is the ultimate luxury.
And in building, the cutting edge is green.

Some things, it takes a while before the mainstream catches up. For a while - years, even - they remain the purview of the cranks and the hobbyists, folks who dump every spare minute and every spare dime into their crazy projects – and if you aren't lucky, they’ll tell you all about it until your eyes glazed over.

The automobile was like that, until Henry Ford made the it available for everyone. And these days we just take cars for granted.

It’s the same with green building. From the time just a few years ago when it was a specialized field that only a few people were interested in, it’s now exploding into the popular consciousness… and onto the landscape.

(More...)

“People are starting to demand this of the marketplace,” notes architect Peter Barsuk of Hermosa Beach. A member of the Gensler firm in Santa Monica, Barsuk is a board member of the US Green Building Council’s Los Angeles Chapter, and was also involved in setting up Hermosa’s Energy Patnership.

“Ten to fifteen years ago,” he notes, “there were very few architects and contractors that were practicing green building. Nobody understood what it meant or what it was. And if you asked suppliers what materials went into their products, they wouldn’t even tell you.”

What has changed things? In part, it’s pocketbook – as energy costs have risen, people see the impact every month on their bills for heating and air conditioning. And as asthma rates skyrocket, people are thinking more about indoor air quality.
But it’s more than that.

“It may look like an extravagance, but really, it’s spending wisely,” says Peter DeMaria of DeMaria Design Associates and Logical Home in Manhattan Beach.

“Theres a stigma that for something that’s a luxury, somehow there’s waste. But you look at refined designs, like autos, these are as fine as can be. We’re seeing the same thing now that happened with the automobile, or with MP3 players - the market is starting to drive all these alternative materials.”

And there’s an incredible range of options now – so don’t worry if you’re more in the market for a Lexus than a Bentley. The principals apply whether you’re building your dream home, or simply sprucing up your current place.


One thing that’s easy to do, but terribly important for your health and that of your family, is cut out Volatile Organic Compounds, or VOCs. Toxic compounds like formaldehyde are commonly used in furniture, carpet, paint and other building products; we’ve learned that these substances leak out into the air of your home for years, damaging young lungs, and leading to asthma and other respiratory problems, especially in children.

Designer Sarah Bernard recalls, “I was working with a client who had learned that out-gassing from upholstery foam and furniture glue can cause birth defects. She was pregnant at the time, and we were bringing in a lot of furniture – well, that’s a pretty reasonable concern.”

What to do? She works with natural products – hardwoods, linen and wool aren’t processed with chemicals (although you should check for stain-proofing or flameproof coatings). Get furniture that uses staples instead of glue. “Sometimes it’s not even a matter of giving up something,” says Bernard, “but approaching things in a different way.”

And use low-VOC paints, which are now widely available.

“When you use a regular paint,” notes Bernard. “you fill the house with ‘new paint smell’ – those are the gasses being released. With low-VOC there’s minimal gasses, so minimal smell, which is nice for the home-owner. And at this point, there’s almost no price difference.”

VOCs are an issue in new construction, as well. Plywood is notorious for out-gassing formaldehyde into living space. And while there are companies now making VOC-free plywood, many architects are looking at wood as very “last century”.

Patrick Killen, of Studio9one2 in Hermosa, is one of them. “Why,” he asks, “do we build multi-million dollar homes with a material – wood – that expands and contracts with water, attracts termites and mold, and just doesn’t last?”

There are a variety of alternatives, including metal studs – used in commercial construction for years – and a variety of alternative cladding materials.

“Instead of using plywood,” says DeMaria, “we’re using Dens-Guard gold, by Pacific Materials. It’s gypsum-based. Mold proof! Great R value, easy to handle and easy to cut.... With all its benefits, you’ll see this being used more and more often, and then the price will drop.”

DeMaria is also involved in an exciting alternative form of construction – he’s got a residence going up in Hermosa Beach based around four steel shipping containers.
“It’s just an extension of modular construction, really,” he says.

Even so, they had a hard time getting the design approved – it can be tricky, working on the bleeding edge this way - but he thinks it’s a great demonstration project.
“We found this amazing spray-on insulation, SuperTherm. It was used on the space shuttle, the coating is the thickness of a credit card, but has an amazing R value – R30. And at just $1.50 sq ft, it’s not that much more expensive. But in order to get our title 24 report approved, we had to work directly with the State Energy Commission. We must have spent at least 40 hours on the phone. They had never seen anything like this stuff before.”

Several designers are working with prefabricated living spaces, including DeMaria, who is launching a separate firm to deal with prefab. Another is Jennifer Siegal, whose DesignMobile firm is in the development stages to put one of her Swell houses in Manhattan Beach.

“Swell House gets assembled like Legos at your dream spot,” she notes, “and features Biofiber (a recycled cabinet composite made from sunflower seeds), finishing material made from recycled newspapers, and "ply-boo" (renewable bamboo) flooring.”
And where a typical architect-designed residence can cost $400 to $500 per square foot, her Swell Houses go for $200.

Prefab is good for the big-picture environment: it minimizes wasted materials, and also cuts transportation costs (since both materials and workers go to one central location). And it’s great for the local neighborhood environment – instead of months of banging and dust and trucks coming and going, you get one easy delivery.
Another thing that’s hot right now: Tankless hot water heaters, both for new construction and for home upgrades.

“Instead of heating up hot water and then having it sit there, wasting energy, these units flash-heat the water as you need it,” explains James Meyer of LeanArch, a design and build firm with roots in Manhattan Beach. He’s been using these heaters in the South Bay houses he’s been building (including the home of LL&S publisher Todd Klawin). “You save energy, you never run out of hot water, plus you save a lot of space, which in the South Bay with its tiny lots makes a big impact.”

These may cost $600 to $900, instead of $250 for a conventional tank heater – but what’s it worth to add an extra 90 cubic feet of space to your house?

Another new feature is in-floor heating (well, its been in use since Roman Times, but not the way they do it today). Meyer loves to use in the South Bay because it again combines environmental friendliness with space savings.

“With forced air, you kill a lot of space with ductwork,” he notes. “Instead, we build radiant heating into pipes below the floor. Instead of howling fans blowing dry air throughout the house, along with dust, pollen and mold, you have a nice quiet system that puts heat out from the bottom up.”

DeMaria has it in his own home, and notes, “This pays a dividend in the long run. And your feet are warm! My youngest son is 2.5 years old, and he’s rolling around on the bamboo floor, happy as if he’s in the bathtub.”

You can use similar systems for pool heating. Rick White of California Solar has a couple of South-Bay projects that use solar absorption.

“We now have an in-deck system. At one project in Palos Verdes, we’re putting a heat-exchange system under the concrete of the tennis court. The concrete heats up, and we pull the heat off the surface, put it into a medium that then runs it around to the pool. It heats the pool AND cools the tennis court.”

The cost has come down - you can solar heat a pool for $4500-$5500 dollars. Typically that means the break-even point is just 2 to 3 years.
And of rooftop solar has changed in a big way, too.

“I now have solar panels that are terracotta colored, so they don’t stand out like big black panels,” says White. “We specialize in photovoltaic panels that are integrated into roofing tiles. Match the roof right in, so the look is totally integrated.”

Meyer has a project going up at 217 9th Street with a 3 KW array of photovoltaic panels. They cut back on power purchases, and they’re tied into the grid, so when you’re not using power during the day, you feed power back into the grid when you’re not using. Most architects are now working this sort of package into their new designs.

“We have a ways to go,” notes Killen. “We need to put the kind of effort into solar and wind that we put into marketing the iPod. Solar has been around since the ‘70s, so compared with the MP3, progress has been slow. Right now we have the beginnings of building a foundation, but we’re only scratching the surface.”

Almost as important as heating is cooling. At the container house, DeMaria has installed an industrial-sized 12-foot fan – made by the Big Ass Fan company (its mascot is a donkey).

“Air conditioning will suck up 70 percent of your electricity,” he says. “If you’ve got your building properly designed to take advantage of your prevailing winds, you don’t need AC. And the fan keeps everything inside cooled off. The blades are similar to what you’ll find on a helicopter, cast aluminum and aerodynamically correct. You could blow the dishes right off the table if you want to.”
James Meyer’s 9th Street project uses the entire back of the house, which is a three-story open stairwell, to create a stack effect, drawing air up from the ground floor and cooling the entire house.

Likewise, projections over the windows cut their exposure to direct sunlight, making a huge impact on the need for AC.

“The standard Modern design is a big glass box that didn’t pay any attention to appropriate site orientation,” notes Killian, “and had no overhangs to cut exposure of the sun to all that glass. We’re learning…”

Another way to cut the unwanted energy provided by the sun is going with a roofing material that’s light, rather than dark. It’s estimated that dark roofs can get up to 180 degrees on a sunny day; some of that heat leaks into the house, and the rest is radiated back out, heating up the neighborhood. Going light with roofing could cut summer urban temperatures by several degrees – and saving millions of dollars in AC costs.

If you want to go really green in a big way, the ultimate is a Green Roof. Instead of standard roofing material, you have a full environment built on top of the building, complete with soil, grass, trees and shrubs.

The firm of Marmol Radziner is doing one at a project overlooking the ocean in Palos Verdes, which also features a solar deck around the pool and other green features (Marmol Radziner is also getting into prefab and modular building). And Steve Lazar of Lazar Design/Build is working with Anthony Poon of Poon Design to put a mixed-use office and condo building at 838 Manhattan Beach Blvd with 2500 square feet of green roof.

“You can walk from your unit,” says Lazar, “out onto a roof of real dirt, real trees, grass, shrubs. Your own open space that’s alive, organic. Much nicer than a concrete jungle.”

The soil/gravel system is carefully engineered proper drainage, while holding the right amount of water without too much expansion or contraction. Aside from aesthetics, it provides spectacular insulation, there’s less runoff for the sewer system, and it provides a benefit of better air quality to the inhabitants of the home as well as the neighborhood.

One other way to go: think smaller and smarter.

Part of smarter is taking advantage of the great southern California climate by integrating indoor and outdoor space.

“We had a client in Hermosa with a first-floor view from Malibu to San Pedro. They totally fell in love with it. That’s a million dollar view; you don’t mind spending $50,000 on triple-track doors that open up completely to give them that unobstructed view. On the container house, we have airplane hangar doors that open up on two sides to integrate the interior space with the outside.”

Killen has worked a similar magic at his Widmann Residence in Hermosa, where lots of triple-track sliding glass effectively double the amount of living space, and Meyer has used overhead garage doors and triple-tracks to open his houses up.

“It’s like being in a tree house,” he says, “why would you not want to take advantage of this amazing climate? People would never have done this 20 years ago. I think it’s great we’re breaking all these rules and making it possible for people live in ways that never would have been conceived of before.”

Meyer has pushed the envelope in other ways, like building in charging stations for electric cars. “It’s a lot like music,” he says. “The greatest creativity comes when people aren’t afraid to break the rules.”

And just as with music, the most creative periods happen when the patrons – the folks making the commissions, be they emperors, industrialists, or entertainment lawyers – are willing to take risks, too.

“Everything we’ve tried, we’ve gotten a great response to,” Meyer says.
Killen would like to keep pushing the envelope in other ways – and he recognizes that some of them are a little harder for the patrons to hear.

“Thinking green isn’t just about picking some nice materials out of a catalog,” says Killen. “But we’re doing things now that will have a huge impact down the road.
That’s an uplifting feeling. That’s something that some of our clients are very much in tune with. I’m not the only one saying ‘we can make a difference’.’

I is in yur Bibles

If you don't know what LOLcat is, you should. Go here.

If you do know what LOLcat is, you'll be pleased to know that someone (with way too much time on their hands) has started a wiki-style website project to translate the Bible into LOLcat:

1 Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded the skiez An da Urf, but he no eated it.

2 Da Urfs no had shapez An haded dark face, An Ceiling Cat rode invisible bike over teh waterz.

3 An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? An lite wuz.

4 An Ceiling Cat sawed teh lite, to seez stufs, An splitted teh lite from dark but taht wuz ok cuz kittehs can seez in teh dark An not tripz ovr nethin.

5 An Ceiling Cat sayed light Day An dark no Day. It were FURST!!!1

Huckabee Scares Me

Because of all the Republican Presidential contenders, Mike Huckabee has that "Nice guy I'd love to have a beer with" thing going on.

The media - when they've been paying attention - have just eaten this guy up. Give them an excuse for a "come from behind kid" narrative, and we could have yet another election cycle where the media give the Republican a love-fest pass on all scrutiny.

Update: It's happening already.

"1. As governor of Arkansas, Republican Mike Huckabee enthusiastically worked to free a serial killer from prison because the rapist and murderer-to-be had become a cause celebre on the right.

2. Today Gail Collins of the Times wrote a column saying that Huckabee, while he'd make a terrible president, is a nice guy who essentially made just an error of compassion in freeing the serial killer."

Brad deLong has more...

California Burning

Our friend Kenny videoblogs on Current.

Pretty scary stuff, and he wasn't even close to the worst of it.

All About Calcium

(cross-posted at BeOnLiving)
by Jeremy Bloom

Strong Teeth? Healthy Blood and Nerves Too!

Calcium is important for bones - everyone knows that. It’s the main structural building block of our bones. But did you know that it’s also needed for cell function, muscle tone, nerve function and blood clotting?

So it’s very important to keep the right balance in your body. Not enough calcium can lead to loss of density in bones and teeth, especially in the elderly. But too much calcium can cause blood troubles, impaired kidney functions, and trouble absorbing other nutrients.

It’s rare to see the classic calcium-deficiency disease, rickets, in the industrialized world. But in people who have a long-term lack of calcium in their diet, the body pulls calcium from the bones to maintain basic cell and nerve functioning, which over years can lead to the brittle bones of osteoporosis.

Supplements
Calcium absorption is tricky, so if you take supplements, it’s recommended that you spread them out over the day. With single heavy doses, most will be wasted. Also, Vitamin D is necessary for Calcium absorption, so proper levels of D must be maintained.

Chemically, calcium comes bound in several forms. Calcium carbonate – chalk – is the cheapest, but is hard to absorb and can cause gas, constipation and kidney stones. Calcium citrate is recommended instead. Chelated calcium is recognized by the body and is the best form of all… though getting your calcium via a healthy, balanced diet is best of all.

Notes:
- Chemically speaking, calcium is the most common metal in your body.
- If you’re on corticosteroids, you have to watch your calcium intake. Corticosteroids block activation of Vitamin D; without it, your body can’t absorb calcium.
- Many other medications interfere with Calcium – consult with your doctor.

Benefits
- Strong, healthy bones and teeth
- Proper blood clotting, blood pressure
- Proper nervous system function
- Maintaining proper calcium levels may prevent kidney stones and cataracts
- May benefit Colon Cancer, IBD
- May benefit PMS

Sources
- Dark green leafy vegetables such as chard, kale, spinach, turnip greens, parsley
- Sea Vegetables and Kelp, wakame and hijiki
- Olives and Olive Oil
- Nuts and seeds, including sesame seeds, almonds, brazil nuts, pecans
- Oranges, Gojis, Mango, Pineapple, Camu Camu
- Amaranth, Maca
- Blackstrap mollases, Agave, Yacon
- Dairy products, yogurt (although we don't recommend them)

(Flickr image from williumbillium, used under a Creative Commons license)

Some people are upset by torture

Frank Rich is on a tear today at the NY Times.

The heart of the column:

By any legal standards except those rubber-stamped by Alberto Gonzales, we are practicing torture, and we have known we are doing so ever since photographic proof emerged from Abu Ghraib more than three years ago. As Andrew Sullivan, once a Bush cheerleader, observed last weekend in The Sunday Times of London, America’s "enhanced interrogation" techniques have a grotesque provenance: "Verschärfte Vernehmung, enhanced or intensified interrogation, was the exact term innovated by the Gestapo to describe what became known as the ‘third degree.’ It left no marks. It included hypothermia, stress positions and long-time sleep deprivation."

Sexual Harrasment and the High Court

Thanks to Clarence Thomas' new whiny, self-serving book, Anita Hill is back in the news.

So I thought I might repost (as it were) a piece I wrote back at the height of the controversy, when a lot of people were saying "Why didn't she come forward when it was happening? If it were really harassment, she should have spoken up."

Sexual Harassment:
Women are not the only ones to suffer
(Appeared in the Berkshire Eagle)

So 75 percent of men polled say they would be "flattered" at sexual advances made by a female co-worker. Bad news, guys - sexual harassment doesn't work like a fantasy letter in "Penthouse" magazine.

It happened to me at my first job.

Right around the time I was hired, I found myself at a weekend social gathering that was also attended by my editor - an older, married woman. She had to finish off a column that was due the next day, told me that she was ducking back over to the office, and asked if I would come along to proofread it.

Naturally, I was flattered that she was interested in my professional input.

Unfortunately, it wasn't my professional input she wanted, as she made clear after we arrived by taking off her glasses, looking me right in the eye and saying, "You can kiss me if you want to."

(More...)

I suggest that, faced with that kind of reality, every one of those 75 percent of swaggerers who say they would be "flattered" would feel exactly the way that I felt: sheer, abject terror. Remember, I was very young, in my first job - a very promising job, in a very tight field. I had every reason to believe that my entire career hung in the balance at that moment.

Sexual desire? I suppose some people are turned on by a feeling of anxiety, nausea and terror, but I'm not one of them. There is nothing sexy about the situation. Nothing.

What did I do? I did what thousands of men and women do in similar situations every day. I played along, trying to balance my boss' increasing demands with my own self-respect.

Over the next few months, I found myself called into her office for "private discussions," was invited to meet her for private lunches, found her "showing up" at public events she knew I was going to be attending.

My co-workers were resentful of the amount of time she spent with me, and morale in the office suffered. Eyebrows were raised in the community. Her husband never said anything directly to me, but I have no doubt he knew what was going on, and he offered me semi-veiled hints about the dangers of mixing my personal and professional life - dangers I knew only too well, as they were a source of daily anxiety for me at the office.

When she suggested we get a hotel room, I was able to deflect her; fortunately for me, she never pressed the issue. I honestly don't know what I would have done if she had.

This went on for three months, until I began to get praise for my work from the publisher and other editors, and felt I was in a strong enough position to politely but firmly tell her this couldn't go on any longer.

Again, I was lucky - she was relatively gracious. She could have fired me, or turned vindictive - it would have been easy for her to make my job a living hell. Even so, I was
operating under a permanent black cloud, never knowing when the whole thing could break wide open again. I lasted another 14 months, and when a better position came up, I jumped at the chance to get away from her.

Why didn't I sue?

Get real. It would have been my word against hers, and in the meantime, who would hire me? I knew it would be downplayed. I knew some people would say I should have been "flattered". One person I did tell - a psychiatrist, in fact - told me "You must have encouraged her."

So, like Anita Hill, I just swallowed the whole thing for years.

Now, I see smug men clucking their tongues and saying, "But if Anita Hill was so upset by Judge Thomas' behavior, why didn't she quit?"

The answer to that is simple: She wanted to be successful. She had a good job, and she didn't want to jeopardize her career track. When she had the chance to move up with Judge Thomas, she took it - if my abusive editor had moved up the publishing ladder and given me a chance to follow, I probably would have done the same thing.

What's so confusing about that? Particularly as a woman and a minority member, Anita Hill could expect the deck to be stacked against her from the outset. She made the best of a bad situation. Can we fault her for that?

I know there are still some men who will say, "But Thomas didn't really do anything. What's the big deal about telling some dirty jokes?"

I have a simple rule of thumb for men: If you wouldn't do something in front of your mother, don't do it to your co-worker.

What's the big deal about a dirty joke? Well, would you say that to your mother?

What's so bad about putting up a centerfold in the mailroom?

Well, would you walk into your mother's house and tape one up on the refrigerator?

How about the buddy who tells you, speaking of a co-worker, "Ah, I know why she wouldn't date me - she's just a stuck-up bitch"? How would you feel if someone was talking about your mother that way? A real man would probably punch the jerk's lights out.

Put it in "the mother context", and most of these disputes seem sort of silly.

And yet, some men still act as if they have the right to treat a fellow human being who happens to be stuck with them by an accident of employment in a way that they would never treat someone they respect. And some employers - who would never tolerate employees who were chronically late, or turn up at work drunk - still tolerate behavior which is just as destructive to a productive work environment. (That's right - sexual harassment isn't just mean-spirited and a bad thing to do; it's also bad for business.)

And for men who still don't get it, try this on for size: You are a male worker, and another male worker starts making sexually suggestive comments.

Someone you see every day, someone you can't avoid. And when you complain to your boss, she says, "What's the matter? I should think you would be flattered by Bruce's attentions."

Still say, "No big deal?"

And why is Anita Hill only coming forward now, so many years later?

For the same reasons that I didn't sue, and didn't talk about it publicly until now. Ten years ago, nobody talked about sexual harassment, about child abuse, about rape. If it happened, and you did talk about it, you were breaking the code - and society has a way of punishing those who break the code that are often more effective than the punishments doled out to the abusers.

What would have happened if Hill had come forward then? At best, a slap on the wrist for Thomas - and blacklisting for Hill. She would have had a reputation. Nothing would ever be said directly, of course; but search committees would hear, "Anita Hill? She's a troublemaker. Not a team player." I doubt very much if Anita Hill would be a professor of law today had she pushed a suit against Thomas.

Why am I coming forward now, after all these years?

For the same reasons.

Because enough is enough.

Because silence is the ally of the abusers.

Because the situation I went through, and the situation Anita Hill describes, is simply unfair, and no one else should have to go through that.

And because if, by coming forward, one less man or woman has to go through the agony of sexual harassment, it will have been worth it.